JeFF Stumpo | The Icarus Sketches

The Icarus Sketches.Number Three in the Seven Kitchens Press Editor’s Series, selected by Ron Mohring. Bound as a single tandem volume with Crystal Boson’sthe icarus series, the Z-fold spine allows both books to be read back-to-back: there is no “top” or “bottom” half.

JeFF Stumpo is the author of two chapbooks: the multilingual poetic sequence El Oceano y La Serpiente / The Ocean and the Serpent (ZIM, 2004) and Riff Raff (Unicorn Press, 2007). He has also released an album of audio and video performance poetry, informal essays, and conversations titled Arts & Crafts. JeFF is a PhD candidate at Texas A&M University and lives with his wife, Kate, and their dogs, Stubby and Apple, in New Hampshire. Please visit hiswebsite for more information on his numerous poetic activities.

Icarus Comes in First

Ten years old and quick as light, Icarus races downhill to victory in the annual soapbox derby, the result of late nights in his father’s workshop, but not his work. He decides the next year to dabble in physics, something about gravity, and gives up science after winningthe Fair. He develops and discards interest in woodworking, car repair, loses patience when the lines he produces for sophomore Art are not the perfect proportions of an engineer, sputters excuses for undone math assignments, Ariadne’s panties, and the picture of a whitebull in his dresser drawer, wrecks the car, steals from Minos, spends a night in jail. Atop the school, he spreads the wings his father made, steps to the edge and leaps– racing gravity and Daedalus downhill, all on his own, quick as light, and winning.

Please visit JeFF’swebsite for more information on his numerous poetic activities.

May 18 2011:Click hereto watch a video of JeFF Stumpo reading and performing at Art Amok in Atlanta on May 13. Included are some poems fromThe Icarus Sketches.